Tolkien Cinematic Universe

The Hobbits... where are they now?

Spoiler

 

Just saw the Battle of Five Armies and lukewarm reviews be damned, I had a great time.
When, nearing the end of the film, Jackson zooms in on a couple of climactic fights in the midst of all the five army chaos he delivers one of the best finales of the genre in years. The Legolas/Thorin fights are expertly staged and the action scenes in this film are so inventive it's hard not to enjoy them.

Unless you are still expecting a 'true' adaptation of Tolkien's work, which after five of these films would be downright silly.

 

I agree, I really enjoyed it! The Thorin/Azog fight was exciting even though all who read the book knew Thorins ultimate fate. But most of all I absolutely loved Galadriels beat down of Sauron! It was intensely entertaining. I also think that it can benefit greatly in the extended edition with the right added footage. Overall I wasn't expecting much from The Battle of the Five Armies, but imo it's the best of The Hobbit trilogy.

 

My girlfriend and I went to see Battle of Five Armies the night it came out. I liked it, but I really thought that they missed the mark by focusing almost an entire movie on one battle that took up all of a page or two in the book.

Yes, the battle scenes were impressive as hell. No question about that. And when Billy Connolly came out as Dain... well, as far as I was concerned they could have made a whole friggin' movie with that guy! But overall, IMHO there just wasn't enough story there to carry an entire 2 1/2 hour movie.

Battle of Five Armies also underscored a problem I've had with the Hobbit movies more and more as they've gone on. Bilbo very often gets relegated to almost a cameo role. The story is, after all, called "The Hobbit". It's about all of these adventures as seen through Bilbo's eyes. And yet by extending the story so far beyond the scope of the book, Bilbo really became less and less the focal point as the story progressed.

Bear in mind, I was never looking for a direct adaptation of the book. I was fine with the way they reworked Lord of the Rings into movie form, swapping events around, adding and deleting various characters and plotlines, etc. And I knew they'd have to do the same thing with The Hobbit in order to make it work as a movie.

But I also don't think that "lots more of everything" is always the best way to go with something like this. And that seemed to be the guiding philosophy behind the Hobbit movies. Turning three books into three three-hour movies worked fine for LOTR, because there was enough story there to support that. But to make a single book - and a shorter children's tale at that - into three 2 1/2 hour movies is just way too much.

I enjoyed the Hobbit movies for what they are, but I really think it would have been a far stronger adaptation overall if they'd stuck with the original plan to make it as two movies. (I even think they could have gotten it right with a single three-hour movie, for that matter.) As it is, the Hobbit films seemed to be treated more as a prequel for Lord of the Rings than as a story about, y'know, the Hobbit.

That being said, the casting was spot-on, and I thought that Martin Freeman was just perfect as Bilbo. The scenes that he did have in Battle of Five Armies were excellent, especially Thorin's death scene. And this just brings me back to the fact that I'd really have preferred to have seen the overall focus of the Hobbit films be more on Bilbo, as was the case with the book (without necessarily just doing a straight adaptation of the book, of course.)

 

I have watched The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies for the 3rd time today! Such a grand adventure film!
-Frodo

 

I am not much of a fan of the book to movie adaptations, but I must admit, LOTR was a groundbreaking prospect in this case of trying to adapt an epic saga.
The story can never be adapted into movie format accurately, so it is the visual and designs that matters the most and LOTR did this right in my opinion!

But what was huge letdown for me, was the Hobit. That is actually book that is short, with completely different atmosphere.
It is more like a children's fairy tail. I think that the con of the Hobit movies is that they try to bring back all that was introduced in LOTR, but that dark atmosphere simply doesn't go well with the story, as it also happens in time, where the evil lurking around was really subtle and on really small scale.
The events happening in the book are of regional character, so I think they missed a lot with this approach.
The second huge con I had was, when I was in IMAX and I knew the book a long time ago, so I wondered as LOTR was trilogy and they made one book into two movies - It turned out that it felt too much spacious in narrative and long overdue it should've been next to the more dense LOTR.
I liked the movie for what it was, but it wasn't that WOW effect I had after watching the LOTR. I went out of the cinema and thought just, good, they did nothing wrong but also nothing was great beyond my expectations, it was just good.
After the announcement of two more movies instead of one, making it a trilogy, I broke the stick over it and understood that they want to emulate the cash-in with creating a prequel trilogy to sit down next to the LOTR, but they didn't had too much left to cook from.

I didn't saw Hobit sequel in cinema since, didn't saw the Battle of 5 Armies even.... I've just lost the apetite. It turned out that the sequel wasn't as good as the first movie, the climax turned me off completely and I don't care about the third movie at all.

I take Silmarillion as an encyclopaedia, and I don't think it is necessary to film it. I enjoy this Tolkien work the most, as I love mythology and legends a lot,
but I bet if they will make a movie or series, it will just be completely reworked cash-in based off it.
But they can make it as a narrated feature on DVD or Blu-Ray for Hobit and LOTR with some designs made by the staff of Jackson's movies, as a bonus.